Date: Fri, 27 Mar 1998 02:18:59 PST
From: "camille zanni"
Subject: Impact of Ratification of the ICCPR on US Domestic Law
United States Ratification of The International Covenant on
Civil & Political Rights and its Implications for Municipal Law:
An International Legal Perspective
BY
William A.M. Courson
Executive Director, The Magnus Hirschfeld Centre for Human Rights
Three critical issues arise as a result of the ratification by the United
States of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1) in
connection with the means by which might be enforced the rights assured
that country's residents under the instrument. The first involves the
nature of the obligations imposed on the United States in effectuating
the Covenant's guarantees domestically. The second deals with the fora
in which the United States can be prompted to give full expression to
those obligations; and the third addresses the means by which those
obligations may be effectuated in a federal system.
These three issues are denominated "critical" because they have been
repeatedly, nearly invariably, raised by the Government of the United
States in response to complainants' attempts to have that country adhere
to international human rights normative standards. Invariably, the
United States has argued, with some success, that (a) the standard
whose breach was alleged was not embodied in a treaty; (b) the forum
which sought to apply or interpret the standard involved was without the
jurisdiction to do so; and (c) the internal constitutional arrangements
of the United States precluded federal involvement in the area addressed
by the standard.(2)
It is because of the United States' ratification of the Covenant that, in
the writer's estimation, the foregoing arguments are greatly attenuated
in their potency, if they are not so plainly ill-founded that they cease
to be made at all before international and regional fora.
In his essay Works in Progress: Human Rights and Domestic Law After the
Cold War (3) United States Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy,
Human Rights and Labor John Shattuck writes in connection with the
treaty's non-self executing status that such a status
"does not prevent prevent U.S. courts from interpreting and taking
guidance from the Covenant. When the Senate declared the Covenant to be
non-self executing, It meant that the Covenant cannot in and of itself
provide a cause of action in United States courts for those who claim
that their rights under it have been violated. That is all it meant,
and that is all we should take it to mean."
The International Covenant Represents an Obligation Owed by
the United States to the International Community
The foregoing observation is certainly true, but the casual reader
may be left with the incorrect, and regretable, impression that the
treaty lacks utility in effectuating the rights guaranteed by it under
municipal law. In fact, a more understandable and fuller apprisal of
the Covenant's non-self executing status would have its reader view it
not so much creating rights that are litigable in United States courts,
but rather, imposing an obligation of a legally binding character on the
United States government to effectuate its provisions, an obligation
for whose discharge the United States amongst other parties signatory
is answerable to the community of nations.
This obligation is detailed in the definitive Vienna Convention on the
Law of Treaties (4) Article 26 of which provides:
"Every international agreement in force is binding upon the parties to
it and must be performed by them in good faith."
and Article 27 of which states that:
"A party may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as
justification for its failure to perform a treaty ..."
An illustration of these long-existing principles is seen in the
1930 decision of the Permanent Court of International Justice in the
Greco-Bulgarian Communities case (5) in which it was held that
"It is a generally accepted principle in international law that in
relations between persons [i.e., states] who are contracting parties to
a treaty the provisions of municipal law cannot prevail over those of
the treaty."
The Permanent Court had also held that this same principle applies
even when a state invokes its constitution "with a view toward evading
obligations incumbent upon it under international law or treaties in
force." (6)
The fora in which parties may be held answerable for their performance
of treaty provisions include, but are not limited to, the United Nations
Human Rights Committee (the premier body responsible for the Covenant's
interpretation and application), the United Nations Commission on
Human Rights and the United Nations Subcommission on the Prevention of
Discrimination and Protection of Minorities. Professor Mark Wojcik of
the John Marshall Law School (7) has as well indicated an additional
forum which could hold the United States accountable for its acts and
omissions in respect of various international standards including
the Covenant, viz., the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
of the Organization of American States. While the Covenant is not an
OAS-originated instrument, the Commission (as well as the Inter-American
Court of Human Rights) has held itself competent to administer any
international agreement to which an OAS member state is subject and has
in the past interpreted the Covenant, the Geneva Conventions, and other
international instruments. (8) The United States, as a consequence of
its membership in the Organization of American States and as a signatory
of the OAS Charter is bound to respect the interpretive decisions of
the Inter-American Commission relating to the former's obligations in
connection with human rights; but until now, that body has arguably been
without a human rights treaty, at least with respect to OAS members who
had not ratified the American Convention on Human Rights including the
United States, whose provisions it could interpret.(9)
Speaking of the obligation imposed on the signer of a treaty to the
world community nearly one hundred and fifty years ago, the [then]
U.S. Secretary of State stated that
"the government of the United States presumes that whenever a treaty
has been duly concluded and ratified by the acknowledged authorities
competent for that purpose, an obligation is thereby imposed upon each
and every department of the government to carry it into complete effect,
according to its terms, and that on the performance of this obligation
consists the due observance of good faith among nations." (10)
More recently. Madeleine K. Abright (at the time U.S. Ambassador to
the United Nations and now Secretary of State) in an address to the
Philadelphia Bar Association quoted another of her predecessors, John
Foster Dulles:
"The United States was born as a nation because the colonists believed men
possessed under law certain basic freedoms and certain inalienable rights.
As a nation, we have, more than any other, striven for the supremacy
of law as an expression of justice. Now we are seeking to establish
world order based on the assumption that the collective life of nations
ought to be governed by law - law as formulated by the Charter of the
United Nations and other international treaties and law as enunciated
by international courts." (11)
Having said that, there is a note of caution that should be inserted
in connection with the extent to which domestic courts and local
governments are willing to extend themselves in effectuating international
agreements (particularly where the obligatory character of quasi-treaty
"Declarations" or non-treaty instruments are questioned), but it is a
note of caution colored by hope. Perhaps the most brutally illustrative
instance of this limitation is seen in the conduct of the United States
in a case relating to capital punishment brought against it before
the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights in connection with its
obligations under the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of
Man. (12)
In the case of Roach & Pinkerton v. United States (discussed
infra), two persons sentenced to death by state courts within the
United States for capital crimes committed before their eighteenth
birthday, having exhausted their domestic remedies, applied for relief
to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Notwithstanding a
finding for the petitioners by the Commission, the two were executed.
A principal feature of the United States' argument was that the American
Declaration (a) did not specifically forbid the execution of minors
and, more emphatically (b) that the Declaration was not a treaty.
Had the Covenant been ratified a decade earlier, the petitioners in
this case may well be alive today. (A third argument advanced by the
representatives of the United States in this case was that the issue
of capital punishment's application to juveniles was one outside of
the purview of the federal government, being constitutionally within
the hands of the several states. That argument was rejected by the
Inter-American Commission, and will be dealt with infra, in connection
with federal/state issues in relation to the Covenant).
But there is a critical distinction to be made, and one favoring
the likelihood of the United States to honor its obligations under
the Covenant: while it is nearly universally agreed that the American
Declaration is not a treaty in any sense of the word (although involving a
certain kind and degree of "legal obligation" for the United States (13)
as determined by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights), the Covenant
is in every sense of the word a treaty, which while non-self executing
indisputably places a legal obligation on it signers. The thrust of the
United States' argument in virtually all of the cases brought against it
before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which understanding
has been affirmed by United States courts, has been that the Declaration
was not a treaty and hence not binding. (14) Such an oft-made argument
cannot be made in the case of the Covenant.
The United States has yet to adopt, and is unlikely to adopt in
the forseeable future, the Covenant's Optional Protocol (15), which
protocol would provide individual claimants with direct access for the
adjudication of claims to the United Nations Human Rights Committee
once domestic remedies had been exhausted. (16) Until such time as the
Optional Protocol is acceded to by the United States, the Inter-American
process may offer U.S. claimants the most accessible, if not the only,
international forum for claims arising under the Covenant and dealing
with individual complaints of human rights violations as distinct from
complaints relating to massive, widespread patterns of abuse with multiple
victims. (17)
By way of summary, while the provisions of a non-self executing treaty
are not litigable in U.S. courts, there do exist fora on the regional
and international levels that are capable of interpreting and applying
their provisions. (18) The moral and political significance, quite
aside from the whatever immediate legal consequences (if any) manifest
themselves domestically, can have a profound educative impact on the
conduct of states.
The International Covenant Can Help to Infuse U.S. Domestic Law
with its Values
Quite aside from its utility in such international "oversight," the
provisions of the Covenant can, and should, infuse the application of
municipal law in the United States with their content, even given the
reticence (and in the worst cases, aversion) of United States courts
in looking to international norms for a conceptual framework. In the
case of Asakura v. Seattle (19), the Supreme Court, in connection with
Article 55(c) of the Charter of the United Nations (another treaty that
the United States Senate had declared to be non-self executing) held that
"treaties are to be construed in a broad and liberal spirit and when two
constructions are possible, one restrictive of rights which may be claimed
under it, and the other favorable to them, the latter is to be preferred."
Moreover, in the case of Rodriguez-Fernandez v. Wilkerson (20) the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the tenth circuit, ignoring whether a treaty
invoked was of a self-executing character or otherwise held that
"[it is] proper to consider international law principles for notions of
fairness as to propriety in holding aliens in detention. No principle
of international law is more fundamental than the concept that human
beings should be free from arbitrary detention."
In the same decision, the court went further, basing its standard
of "universal principles" (analogous to the jus cogens concept in
international jurisprudence) in part on the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights and the American Convention on Human Rights, the first being not
a treaty at all in any sense of the word (but held by many publicists
of international law to embody a statement of preexisting customary law
and definitive norms dealing with the subject of human rights) and the
latter a treaty, but one left unratified by the United States.
In summary, there appears to be evolving at least in some American
judicial quarters a sense that municipal law, when in conflict with
international legal norms, ought to be construed in such a fashion so
as to do the least possible violence to the latter. Consequently, the
provisions of a non-self executing treaty can and do enjoy a degree of
persuasive authority in the interpretation of municipal law. (21)
Federal and State Obligations Under the International Covenant
In the letter submitting the Covenant for President Carter's signature,
the then Secretary of State noted that
"The United States shall implement all the provisions of the Covenant
over whose subject matter the Federal Government exercises legislative
and judicial jurisdiction; with respect to the provisions over whose
subject matter constituent units exercise jurisdiction, the Federal
Government shall take appropriate measures, to the end that the competent
authorities of the constituent units may take appropriate measures for
the fulfillment of this Covenant." (22)
Article 50 of the Covenant provides that
"The provisions of the present Covenant shall extend to all parts of
federal states without any limitations or exceptions."
The foregoing Article, in the absence of a reservation, declaration
or understanding, obliges a signatory to the Covenant that possesses a
federal structure to exercise power over subject matter that may have
been reserved to its constituent units. (23) Even where a signatory has
made a reservation, such reservation may be invalid depending upon its
subject matter and the question of whether or not such a reservation
"goes to the heart" of, or defeats the purpose of, a treaty. By way
of illustration, there is a compelling argument to be made that
the United States' reservations to the Covenant in connection with
the capital execution of juveniles is an invalid reservation, under
both the provisions of the treaty itself and in terms of the general
and peremptory norms of international law as embodied in the Vienna
Convention. (24) The same argument could be made, with an almost equally
compelling character, that reservations relating to the obligations of
a federal state to effectuate Covenant guarantees throughout the whole
of its territory are invalid, especially in the light of the general
norms of international law (v. note 5) although the Covenant does not
expressly state that its federal provisions contained in Article 50 are
a non-derogable provision and hence immune to reservation.
Additionally, it should be emphasized that there are in the United States
a good many areas in which federal and state functions are without strict
demarcations and a degree of overlap exists. Even indistinct demarcations
shift over time. It was but in the recent past that proponents of racial
integration argued, successfully, that the matter of the provision of
separate public accomodations for the races comprising that country's
population was an issue for federal as opposed to state action. (25) Their
success was a novel departure from the practice of segregation which had
won Court approval on that very basis a half-century earlier. (26) It
was in the past decade that efforts to have state statutes criminalizing
private sexual conduct among consenting adults ruled unconstitutional
by the United States Supreme Court ended in failure in that court's
ruling in Bowers v. Hardwick. (27) Considering the effect of evolving
standards of fairness and decency held by the public on the American
judiciary, and considering further the United Nations Human Rights
Committee decision in the matter of Toonen v. Australia (28) in which the
federal government of Australia was held in breach of Covenant provisions
on account of its inaction in the face of one of its consituent states
(viz., Tasmania) continuing to apply criminal sanctions to private and
consensual sexual conduct (sodomy), and further in the light of United
States ratification of the Covenant (in January of 1992), a time may be
approaching when those indistinct damarcations between federal and state
authority in the United States are redrawn in favor of federal authority
insofar as the effectuation of Covenant guarantees are concerned, and in
a fashion more consonant with international norms and the international
obligations of the United States.
Constituent units of federal states do not, generally speaking, enjoy
personality or standing under international law. (29, 30) Further,
as pointed out supra a State may not use the excuse of its internal
constitutional arrangements with subsidiary political units to avoid
its obligations under treaty law. Thus, another argument of compelling
weight may be brought to bear in advancing the responsibility of the
federal government of the United States, in international fora, for
acting in areas of state conduct reserved by its Constitution to its
constiuent states. This is no more clearly discernable than in the
aforecited case of Roach & Pinkerton vs. the United States. In responding
to the United States' argument that the subject matter of the case (the
capital execution of juveniles) was not within its federal jurisdiction,
the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights held that:
"63. For the federal government of the United States to leave the issue
of the application of the death penalty to juveniles to the discretion
of state officials results in a patchwork scheme of legislation which
makes the severity of the punishment dependent, not, primarily, on the
nature of the crime committed but on the location where it was committed.
Ceding to state legislatures the determination of whether a juvenile may
be executed is not of the same category as granting states the discretion
to determine the age of majority for the purpose of purchasing alcoholic
beverages or of consenting to matrimony. The failure of the federal
government to preempt the states as regards this most fundamental
right - the right to life itself - results in a pattern of legislative
arbitrariness throughtout the United States which results in the arbitrary
deprivation of life and inequality before the law..." (31)
Summary
In its ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights, the United States has taken a giant step although it may hardly
be cognizant of the precise measure of that stride that the future will
demonstrate. In ratifying the treaty, the United States has for one of
the very few instances in its history (the United States has ratified
only eleven treaties dealing with human rights, all of a specialized
nature and limited application, such as the Genocide Convention,the
Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention against Torture,
etc.) obliged itself to the community of nations to observe international
law in the sphere of human rights. For the first time in its history,
it has willingly become a party to a treaty of general application
dealing with the subject of human rights. Until now, the United States
has unhesitatingly marked its committment to promote those rights by its
becoming a party to instruments of the likes of the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights and the American Declaration on the Rights and Duties
of Man. But while those instruments are noble expressions of aims to
be achieved, they are not indisputably sources of law. Their obligatory
characters are subject to debate, and have been debated.
In the Resolution of Ratification adopted by the United States Senate,
Section IV specifies that:
"Nothing in the Covenant requires or authorizes legislation or other
action by the United States of America prohibited by the Constitution
of the United States as interpreted by the United States." (32)
What is not stated in the Resolution but so strongly implied as to
amount, in the writer's view, to recognition of the fact is that as a
result of its adherance to the Covenant, the United States is obliged to
effectuate its provisions via the legislative process where the guarantees
of the Covenant and municipal law are incongruous but where from the
point of view of municipal law such processes do not do violence to the
Constitutional order. This a a very serious concern in a time that has
seen the continued exclusion of a substantial number of Americans on the
basis of their private lives and lifestyles from full participation in
their country's life as equals before the law, and in an era when issues
such as the right to reproductive choice, the right to a sphere of privacy
impenetrable to governmental scrutiny and the right to choose to terminate
life in the face of intractible suffering, as well as a host of issues
relating to the definition of other human rights and freedoms, occupy
so much attention on the part of the country's governors and governed.
Notwithstanding the Covenant's non-self executing status and in spite of
the fact that the United States had expressed substantial reservations,
understandings and declarations (whose validity as demonstrated supra is
highly problematic) it does indisputably represent a legal obligation
for the United States, one for whose performance or non-performance
the United States can be called to account before the community of
nations. Its efficacy, in the writer's appraisal, will depend in direct
proportion to its frequency of use by litigants before both municipal
courts and international fora. It will also depend on the degree to
which the American public, both legal practitioners and lay persons,
demand that it be taken seriously as a legal obligation. Nearly two
years after United States Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights
John Shattuck wrote that "concrete steps" were being taken toward the
Covenant's implementation, stating that among those steps were "the
creation of an inter-agency working group, which draws together all of
the relevant agencies in the federal government" and "the creation of an
office to coordinate the implementation process" (33) no such structures
have been created. (34) The fact that such a delay is conduct unworthy
of any signer of any treaty, and particularly intolerable in one with the
regard for international legality that is espoused and expounded by the
United States, needs to be made plainly evident to those in government
responsible for the furtherance of the protections enumerated in the
Covenant: to the members of the executive and legislative branches of
government, by bringing in a repeated, emphatic and instructive fashion
to their attention their obligations to further the aims of international
legality and to the functionaries of the judiciary by encouraging them
in the same fashion to rely on international law to provide a conceptual
framework in the decision-making process.
NOTES
(1) The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (General
Assembly Resolution 2200A [xxi] of 16 December 1966)
(2) See for example Inter-American Commission on Human Rights decision
in case no. 9647 cited at note no. 8 and discussed in detail infra.
(3) Shattuck, John: "Works in Progress: Human Rights and Domestic
Law After the Cold War," Emory International Law Review (Fall, 1995)
vol. 9, no. 2
(4) "The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties" (May 23,
1969; entered into force January 27, 1980), United Nations Document
No. A/CONF.39/27, in Rosenne, Shabtai: The Law of Treaties: A Guide to
the Legislative History of the Vienna Convention (Oceana Publications,
Dobbs Ferry) 1970, pp. 196-201
(5) Quoted in extenso in International Commission of Jurists Review,
(English Edition) No. 42, December 1992, p. 39
(6) ibid.
(7) Wojcik, Mark: "Using International Human Rights Law to Advance
Queer Rights: A Case Study of the American Declaration of the Rights
and Duties of Man," Ohio State Law Journal (1994) vol. 55, no. 3, p. 654
(8) Advisory Opinion No. OC-1/82 of 24 September 1982, The
Inter-American Court of Human Rights (on "Other Treaties Subject to
the Consultative Jurisdiction of the Court") . In another case (Roach &
Pinkerton v. United States, Case no. 9647, IACHR Annual Report 1986-7,
OAS Doc. No. OEA/Ser.l/V.II.71, Doc. 9, Rev. 1, 22 September 1987, quoting
Resolution 3/87 of 27 March 1987) the United States argued unsuccessfully
the the Commission (and the Court) did not enjoy a mandate to look beyond
OAS treaties in order to interpret normative human rights standards.
(9) Charter of the OAS, 30 Apr 1946, 2 U.S.T. 2394, as amended 27 Feb
1970, 21 U.S.T. 607, Art 112. See the discussion following relating to
the non-treaty character and the questioned obligatory character of the
American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man, whose standards
are applied by the Commission to OAS members which have not ratified the
American Convention on Human Rights as a consequnce of their membership
in the organization.
(10) Lillich, Richard: "The Role of Domestic Courts in Enforcing
International Human Rights Law," appearing in Hannum, H., ed., Guide to
International Human Rights Practice (University of Pennsylvania Press,
Philadelphia) 1988, pp. 227-8
(11) Madeleine K. Albright, "Enforcing International Law," June 15,
1995 Speech to the Philadelphia Bar Association, U.S. Department of State
Bureau of International Organization Affairs, State Department 95/06/15
(12) The American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man
(Adopted by the Ninth International Conference of American States:
Bogota, Colombia 1948)
(13) Advisory Opinion No. OC-10/89 of 14 July 1989, the Inter-American
Court of Human Rights (on "Interpretation of the American Declaration of
the Rights and Duties of Man within the Framework of Article 64 of the
American Convention on Human Rights"), quoted in Wojcik, pp. 652-3. In
this case, the U.S. argued that the Declaration was not a legally-binding
instrument but rather a declaration of more or less distant political and
social goals: "The American Declaration ... respresents a noble statement
of the human rights aspirations of the American states ... however [it]
was not drafted as a legal instrument ... its normative value lies as a
declaration of basic moral principles and broad poliitcal committments
... not as a binding set of legal obligations." (Wojcik, p. 653)
(14) Wojcik, op.cit., p. 650-1
(15) Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights (General Assembly Resolution 2200 A [xxi] of 16 December
1966; entry into force 23 March 1976 in accordance with its Article 9)
(16) Article 1, Optional Protocol:
"A state party to the Covenant that becomes a party to the present
Protocol recognizes the competence of the [Human Rights] Committee
to receive and consider communications from individuals subject
to its jurisdiction who claim to be victims of a violation by
that state party of any of the rights set forth in the Covenant."
Article 2, Optional Protocol:
"Subject to the provisions of Article 1, individuals who
claim that any of their rights enumerated in the Covenant have
been violated and who have exhausted all available domestic
remedies may submit a written communication to the Committee
for consideration."
(17) Violations by signatories of Covenant provsions may be asserted
in, e.g., pleadings before the United Nations Commission on Human
Rights and its Subcommission on the Prevention of Discrimination and
Protection of Minorities under those bodies' Resolution 728f, 1235
and 1503 procedures. But those procedures do not have as their goal
the remediation of individual cases of violations, seeking rather
to address massive, widespread and gross violations of normative
international standards. Until such time as the U.S. accedes to the
Optional Protocol, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights may
remain the most available, if not the only effective, forum capable of
addressing claims by U.S. residents arising under the Covenant.
(18) Diggs v. Richardson, (Civil No. 12-1292 [D.D.C. 5/14/75;
D.C. Circuit 1976]) 555 F 2nd. 848, quoted in Hannum, p. 226
(19) 265 U.S. 332, 342 (1924), quoted in Hannum, p.226
(20) 654 F 2nd at 1388, quoted in Hannum, p. 235
(21) Murray v. Schooner Charming Betsy, 6 U.S. (2 Cranch) 64, 118
(1804) accord; Lauritsen v. Larsen, 345 U.S. 571, 578 (1953) quoted in
Hannum, p. 238
(22) Letter of Submittal by Secretary of State Warren Christopher
dated 17 December 1977 to the President; in Message from the President
of the United States Transmitting Four Treaties Pertaining to Human
Rights, 95th Congress, 2nd Session (Senate), U.S. Government Printing
Office (Washington, DC) 1978, p. xiv; virtually identical language is
employed in the U.S. Senate's Resolution of Ratification, 102nd Congress
2nd Session Exec. Rept. 102-23 (March 24, 1992 [Legislative Day January
30, 1992]) section II (5), p. 23
(23) Report of the United States Delegation to the Inter-American
Conference on the Protection of Human Rights, San Jose, Costa Rica: 9 -
22 November 1969; reported in Burgenthal, T., and Norris, eds., Human
Rights: The Inter-American System (Oceana, Dobbs Ferry) 1982, Vol. 3,
Booklet 15, Release 2, p. 37
(24) From the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties:
"A State may when signing .... formulate a reservation unless:
(a) the reservation is prohibited by the treaty ...." [or]
"(c) in cases where the treaty contains no provisions regarding
reservations, the reservation is incompatible with the object
or purpose of the treaty." (Article 16)
From the International Covenant on Civil & Political Rights:
"No derogation from Articles 6,7,8 (paragraphs 1 and 2), 11,15,16
and 18 may be made under this provision." Article 4(2)
"Sentences of death shall not be imposed for crimes committed
by persons below eighteen years of age and shall not be carried
out on pregnant women." Article 6(5)
(25) Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896)
(26) Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), 349 U.S. 294
(1955)
(27) 478 U.S. 186 (1986)
(28) United Nations Committee on Human Rights, Case
no. CCPR/C/50/D/488/1992, Communication no. 488/1992 dated 25 December
1991
(29) Akehurst, M., A Modern Introduction to International Law (George
Allen & Unwin, London) 1978, pp. 58-9
(30) The Constitution of the United States (as well as the
Constitutions of many of its constituent states) recognizes the primacy
of international law and of federal law in connection with the laws of
the diverse states, in its Article VI.
(31) v. Note 8
(32) Resolution of Ratification, U.S. Senate, 102nd Congress 2nd
Session, Exec. Rept. 102-23 (March 24th 1992 [Legislative Day January
30 1992]) A previous submission to the U.S. Senate (Submission by the
Executive Office of President George H. Bush to the Seante Foreign
Relations Committee dated November 1991 entitled "The International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: Explanation of Proposed
Reservations, Understandings and Declarations," in "Declarations, Section
I.") pointed out that:
"Existing United States law generally complies with the Covenant,
hence, implementing legislation is not contemplated..."
(33) v. Note 3
(34) Letter in the writer's possession dated February 3, 1997 from
David P. Stewart, Esq., Assistant Legal Adviser for Human Rights & Refugee
Affairs, Office of the Legal Adviser, United States Department of State
(Washington, DC)
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